In DC Comics' Mirror Universe Saga, the Terran Empire had an ISS Nixon.
Dumb and Bizarre Trek Novel Moments...
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In DC Comics' Mirror Universe Saga, the Terran Empire had an ISS Nixon.
Meh. Trek has always been an American-centred series. That's just reality.
I for one am happy that the writers (both screen and novel) decided that Earth's unified government would have a Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers and other parliamentary trappings rather than just being a carbon copy of the US system.
For that I can accept naming a space station after Obama.
I for one am happy that the writers (both screen and novel) decided that Earth's unified government would have a Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers and other parliamentary trappings rather than just being a carbon copy of the US system.
For that I can accept naming a space station after Obama.
I think that in all this discussion of politics and race, we're ignoring one key fact about President Obama:
He is our first Trekkie president.
He's been rather overt about his fandom for Star Trek, considering, so I think acknowledging him in a Star Trek novel is just a matter of returning the favor. I mean, look at all the comic books he's appeared in over the past year. It's not just because a lot of comics creators support him and his politics -- it's also because, quite simply, the man is a fellow geek. He's a nerdy intellectual who likes comics and science fiction. So the geek community is geeking out about having one of us in the White House. Name-dropping him in a Trek novel is as natural as having Farscape's Crichton name-drop Buffy or having Veronica Mars say "frak." It's just part of the overall memetic cross-pollination that characterizes modern geek pop culture.
He is our first Trekkie president.
He's been rather overt about his fandom for Star Trek, considering, so I think acknowledging him in a Star Trek novel is just a matter of returning the favor. I mean, look at all the comic books he's appeared in over the past year. It's not just because a lot of comics creators support him and his politics -- it's also because, quite simply, the man is a fellow geek. He's a nerdy intellectual who likes comics and science fiction. So the geek community is geeking out about having one of us in the White House. Name-dropping him in a Trek novel is as natural as having Farscape's Crichton name-drop Buffy or having Veronica Mars say "frak." It's just part of the overall memetic cross-pollination that characterizes modern geek pop culture.
Uh, it was Kennedy and Johnson who put us on the Moon. By the time Nixon took office, we'd already achieved lunar orbit, and NASA could have, financially speaking, coasted the rest of the way to the surface.
In fact, Nixon has at least partial responsibility for the cancellation of the last three planned lunar landings, and the scaling back of the Apollo Applications Program to a single Skylab that was visited three times, then abandoned, with no follow-up.
Probably Nixon's most noteworthy accomplishment in terms of Trekkish values was founding the EPA to help protect the Earth's environment. Before Reagan turned the Republicans into the party of big business above all, conservation was seen as compatible with conservatism, and Nixon was a genuine environmentalist.
And yet as Will Bunch points out in Tear Down This Myth, even Reagan was far more moderate than even his biggest cheerleaders or his biggest detractors give him credit for.
I've always found it remarkable, that the Far Right holds up someone as moderate as Nixon as an icon, and seeks to avenge Watergate in spite of the fact that it was Watergate that put them in the driver's seat of the Republican Party. Then again, I've also found it quite remarkable that there are politically active women (not to mention non-whites) on the far right, who seek to roll back the very reforms that put them in positions of political power. George Lakoff explains much about what makes the Far Right tick, but alas, not everything.
And for the record, there is nothing "conservative" about the current Republican leadership. They are reactionary. In some cases, even counter-revolutionary.
I've always found it remarkable, that the Far Right holds up someone as moderate as Nixon as an icon, and seeks to avenge Watergate in spite of the fact that it was Watergate that put them in the driver's seat of the Republican Party. Then again, I've also found it quite remarkable that there are politically active women (not to mention non-whites) on the far right, who seek to roll back the very reforms that put them in positions of political power. George Lakoff explains much about what makes the Far Right tick, but alas, not everything.
And for the record, there is nothing "conservative" about the current Republican leadership. They are reactionary. In some cases, even counter-revolutionary.
No argument there.
I'm sorry, but in what possible universe is convincing the majority of 300 million people to vote you into the presidency not an accomplishment?
And in what possible universe is running for President of a country with a history of political violence, in which there are still a disturbingly large number of violent white supremacists, in order to tear down one of the greatest barriers to African-American equality and accomplishment, not an act of courage?
Whatever else you might think about Barack Obama, I don't think it's reasonable to say that he hasn't accomplished something great and historic and courageous by running for and being elected President. If nothing else, it opens the door for future Americans of non-white descent.
I think he'll be remembered for both.
And I also think that the level of discrimination faced by Catholic Americans absolutely pales in comparison to the vast levels of oppression suffered by African-Americans until very recently in our history. I don't think it's a valid comparison because of that.
That depends on the definition of Trekkie. Ronald Reagan apparently also enjoyed Star Trek (hence his visit to the set in 1991), if somewhat less frequently.
I've never been fond of those references in generally serious series. Star Trek has never been very pop-culture permeable, and I prefer it that way, as much as I prefer Farscape's punk-collage approach when watching it.
He received only just short of 70 million votes, which is still the greatest number ever received by any person in a free election (thanks to India's indirect election of its leaders), but you could make a similar argument for nearly any American president. The previous record-holder was George W. Bush, who gained it in 2004 (John McCain and John Kerry are third and fourth) and before him was Ronald Reagan (who is currently trailed by Al Gore).
No person has ever won the votes of a majority of America's citizens. Ronald Reagan received the votes of the greatest portion of them, though, just more than 23 percent in 1984.
Even if President Obama had achieved what you claimed, the distinction is of dubious interest to history. By the mark you suggest, every American president would be worth naming something for, simply by virtue of their having become president, no matter how terrible they turned out to be. Yet there is good reason that we name nothing for Andrew Johnson or James Buchanan, and generations have declined to consider lesser presidents notable (though we now, to much complaint in naval circles, are constructing an aircraft carrier named for Gerald Ford).
In this one, unless we're willing to concede that running as a Democrat of any background is an act of courage. The barrier you suggest was illusory; there was no racial impediment to President Obama's victory (if anything, he was helped by his race, at the very least in the primaries). The violent threats he faced were also faced by President Clinton, who was several times the subject of attempted assassination by Americans (as President Bush was by foreigners, most notably in Georgia, where he was nearly killed).
I disagree. The door was already open. A majority of Americans polled in 1996 favored General Colin Powell as president to either of the major candidates - twelve years before President Obama's election. America is not the racist nation it once was. Racism still exists here (e.g. people still classify themselves by race), and we still have truly abhorrent racists (my grandfather, a self-identifying Cherokee and Nazi and Confederate sympathizer, is unfortunately one of them), but we are no longer a country of racists. The issue was past before Senator Obama chose to run for president. He himself said: "Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country."
There was much greater concern in the US about President Kennedy's religion than there was about President Obama's race. Where Senator Kennedy found it necessary to give a speech promising to govern independently of his religion, Senator Obama did not need to give a similar speech regarding his race; the closest parallel was the speech he gave to reassure voters that he wasn't racist (in the wake of the problems caused by his then-pastor).
Don't play down the fact that Obama is the first African-American president, it is an historic presidency even if he doesn't do much. Just like the first woman president and the first Native American president will be just as historic.
^ On the other hand, no one remembers Vice President Curtis, who was a member of the Kaw Nation.
It's also difficult to say whether two of those firsts may have occurred in the 1920s. Calvin Coolidge claimed to be of (slightly) native ancestry; his assertion was widely believed at the time, but later genealogists have not been able to substantiate or refute it.
Similarly, Warren Harding was accused of having (remote) African ancestry, but Harding himself professed uncertainty: "How do I know, Jim? One of my ancestors may have jumped the fence." Modern researchers have been able to find no more evidence for or against the claim than was found by contemporary writers.
In both of those cases, the supposed ancestry is unproven, and would be remote even if true, which suggests the question of what degree of ancestry qualifies one. President Obama, being of half European and half African ancestry, seems to qualify in all eyes, but I wonder to what degree the question will even matter in the future. Does it matter now that Martin Van Buren was the first non-English president?
I grant that our president's ancestry is notable today, but I am not at all certain that persons in the future will think it memorable. In a world without race, will the first dark-skinned president matter more than the first dark-eyed one?
It's also difficult to say whether two of those firsts may have occurred in the 1920s. Calvin Coolidge claimed to be of (slightly) native ancestry; his assertion was widely believed at the time, but later genealogists have not been able to substantiate or refute it.
Similarly, Warren Harding was accused of having (remote) African ancestry, but Harding himself professed uncertainty: "How do I know, Jim? One of my ancestors may have jumped the fence." Modern researchers have been able to find no more evidence for or against the claim than was found by contemporary writers.
In both of those cases, the supposed ancestry is unproven, and would be remote even if true, which suggests the question of what degree of ancestry qualifies one. President Obama, being of half European and half African ancestry, seems to qualify in all eyes, but I wonder to what degree the question will even matter in the future. Does it matter now that Martin Van Buren was the first non-English president?
I grant that our president's ancestry is notable today, but I am not at all certain that persons in the future will think it memorable. In a world without race, will the first dark-skinned president matter more than the first dark-eyed one?
It is if it is the first.
I'd say it matters if the public knew about it at the time when the future president ran for office. That's what makes it important - as it shows the socio-cultural change in the country.
An example: I'm sure that the day when USA gets its first openly gay president will be held as another milestone. However for all we know, maybe there have been gay or bisexual presidents of USA - but that makes no difference at all, and has no importance or bearing on history in any way.
In my experience, the novelty of such milestone events tends to wear off quite quickly and they become normal (thankfully). When I was young, it was a commonly held conviction that an openly gay man would ever hold an important political office (or would at least have a very hard time getting elected), then Wowereit came along and changed the game. Then there was even a gay Conservative state governor and now we have a gay foreign minister. It stopped being a big deal, plain and simple. And I doubt Wowereit will be remembered in a significant way in 50 years or so. I'd say the same about our first Chancellorette. And that's a good thing because it shouldn't matter.
Pardon me -- you're right, I misspoke. I was thinking about the 53% of the popular vote that Obama won and forgot to take into account that only about 131 million or so Americans actually voted.
You are misunderstanding the nature of my argument. My argument is not that President Obama would be remembered and named in honor of simply because he was elected President, my argument is that he would be remembered and named in honor of because he was the first African-American elected President.
And I'm sorry, but when you're talking about a minority group that was enslaved for three hundred years, brutally oppressed for another one hundred years, and still faces major discrimination, that is an accomplishment. It is simply not reasonable to claim that an African-American who accomplishes election to the Presidency has not accomplished something great in and of itself, something much more than any prior President. No other President had to overcome popular biases against their own skin color to be elected.
Obviously, every candidate is a target of attempted violence. But you cannot reasonably claim that President Obama is not displaying more courage for running and holding office than prior Presidents when you consider that threats against Obama are up 400%.
Bullshit. This is America, a nation where African-Americans are still many times more likely to be treated more harshly by the judicial system than European-Americans, where personal and institutional racism are both disturbingly widespread, where African-Americans have really only been truly free and equal under the last for less than fifty years.
Hell, one of my friends can't even drive his car or sit in a parked car to talk for a little while without the police showing up because he's black.
America still has a very strong racist undercurrent. It's not as overt as it once was, and not as powerful as it once was, but to say that America is somehow no longer racist and all races are treated as truly equal by our society is just not true.
No one knew if America was capable of overcoming that and electing a black President until 2008; there were people everywhere who still thought that they'd never see a black President in their lifetimes.
No matter how you try to spin it, you simply cannot avoid the fact that the election of a black man to the Presidency is a big deal of historic proportions. It's a watershed moment in American history.
When a man has to publicly release his birth certificate because mass numbers of people are claiming and believing that he wasn't born in the United States and isn't truly a citizen, I don't think you can reasonably claim that he's not facing just as much, if not more, concern over his race as Kennedy did over his religion. (And, no, there is no reason to doubt Obama's status as a citizen other than race; believing that President Obama is not a natural-born citizen when no other presidential candidate has been such a target is racism, pure and simple.)
I'm sorry, but how can you reasonably claim that Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech is not the exact equivalent of Kennedy's speech?
Because he was fully assimilated into European-American society, and because, frankly, America since the end of the Indian Wars has often been much less bigoted towards Native American nations than towards African-Americans.
Also, he was Vice President, not President; people in general don't remember Vice Presidents.
Of course he does. Race is a folk taxonomy, not a genetic one. Objectively, the lines between one "race" and another are of course arbitrary. In reality, your membership in a given "race" is socially defined. In other words -- if you can't get a taxi in New York because your skin is too dark, then you're not really white in our society, even if you're half-European. (And President Obama has written about not being able to get a taxi because of his skin color before his rise to fame.)
What is "the question?" The definition of "race," or whether or not a given President's ethnic or racial status will be recalled?
No, it does not matter now that Martin Van Buren was the first non-English President. But you can't compare Martin Van Buren to Barack Obama, because, again, the degree of discrimination faced by non-English Americans in the 18th and 19th Centuries simply does not compare, in any way, to the degree of oppression faced by African-Americans.
Yes, because in that world, they'll still remember the horrible things done to people because of race, and will recognize that it is as a result of the efforts of people like Obama that racism will have been thoroughly extinguished. They'll recognize that equality did not come because people decided to stop caring about race, it came because people had to actively fight and overcome racism.
Which is silly, because the amount of discrimination faced by LGBT persons should make it clear that it is still a big deal. You cannot claim that it's not a big deal when a given minority group has not been granted full social equality.
No, that's a bad thing, because you have to remember these aspects of social evolution in order to help ensure that they aren't lost. Is it a big deal that the Western world has a given election resulting in a peaceful transfer of power from one faction to another? Not today. But it's vital that we remember how democracy came to those countries and who brought it.
We have to remember and honor those who fought for, and established, equality. We have to remember Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr and Barack Obama and Harvey Milk. Because if we don't, we lose what they fought for.
The USS Nixon would be an appropriate ship for the Diplomatic Corps to use, wouldn't it? I can picture them dealing with the Ferengi, Cardassians, Romulans, Vorta, and Founders. Perhaps even staffed entirely by Section 31.
^ I remember a mirror universe Trek comic which featured an ISS Nixon.
I always assumed that Kennedy only became that famous because he was assassinated. There's a lot of hype around him that was created only in retrospect.
Obama being the first black president is a novelty. For Americans. Other countries already have blacks, women, gay... it's funny how the US manage to do things that other countries have already done, but sell it as if it was the first time and best thing ever. Can't wait for the day when they elect a woman President and then again try to sell it as if it was a first for the world. And don't they have a gay vice president/chancellor/prime minister in Germany? Wonder how long that will take.
Obama being the first black president is a novelty. For Americans. Other countries already have blacks, women, gay... it's funny how the US manage to do things that other countries have already done, but sell it as if it was the first time and best thing ever. Can't wait for the day when they elect a woman President and then again try to sell it as if it was a first for the world. And don't they have a gay vice president/chancellor/prime minister in Germany? Wonder how long that will take.
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